


In Dark Places

by droid_girl



Series: Roads Untravelled [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-19
Packaged: 2018-12-25 13:07:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/droid_girl/pseuds/droid_girl
Summary: Continuation of "Roads Untravelled" series/AU I accidentally created“Come back to me.” she whispered. “Don’t…don’t swear it by the gods, or on your life. You and I, we have enough oaths between us to last us to the day we die. Just come back to me.”As Lord Commander in the North, Jaime Lannister is probably the only one suited to represent Winterfell in King's Landing because he's the least likely to get killed by his sister. The plan is simple - get in and get out.But since when do plans stay simple?Starts off based on the end of Season 7 of GoT.





	1. A Long Engagement

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This part of the series is not heavy on the Jaime/Sansa scenes, but its definitely part of the crux. Expect bad zombie apocalypse cliches, some Lovecraftian rip-offs, and all in all, me getting this pet project finished up in a way that hopefully, won't suck very badly.

He didn’t think it was possible, but the air was growing noticeably colder. 

While the furred lining under the leather of his tunic did much to ward off the chill, and the red woollen cloak he wore continued to provide him a measure of comfort, it was undeniable that winter was truly here. Hurrying between buildings, Jaime could feel his lungs hurting with every breath of cold air he took in. 

So it was that he turned a corner to see Sansa standing out in the open, lifting her face to the white sky and smiling radiantly up at the falling snow. Her bright hair was uncovered, and snow flakes had begun to settle all over her bare head in growing quantities. 

_Northern Queen or no, she was going to catch her death_ , he thought grimly.

“Glorious isn’t it?” she asked with her eyes shut. 

“Woman, you’ve finally lost your mind.” he snorted, and pulled her into the Great Hall with him. It was one of those rare times when the large hall stood empty. All the other Northern Lords and Ladies had retreated to their separate camps outside the castle, to wait out this latest storm with their own people. Training had ground to an utter halt for the day, seeing as the snow was now knee deep. 

Physically shoving Sansa in front of the great fire that was constantly being fed by the servants, Jaime kissed her quickly on her forehead before whipping off his leather glove and extending his left hand before the flames. He bore a vague hope that he would one day feel warm again. At the end of his right arm, he no longer wore his solid golden hand, but rather, a stiff leather replacement expertly molded to fit him. 

With the onset of winter, the ever worsening cold made wearing bare metal against naked flesh utterly unbearable. He had discovered this to his chagrin the day he lost a small patch of skin whilst removing the golden hand. 

“Have you seen my sister?” Sansa asked with a small frown. 

“She was out on the field earlier.” Jaime said. “She’s done marvellous work with the womenfolk…and she’s taught the lads plenty about how not to underestimate a foe.”

“Are you two…” Sansa looked hopefully at him. The grimace she received in return however, snuffed out what little optimism she had. The knight doubted that Arya Stark would ever trust him, let alone like him. But they had an uneasy truce, and in all frankness, her deadly skills were a boon in their efforts to prepare their soldiers.

The Queen and the Lord Commander stood beside each other in the comfortable silence of the dark hall. After a moment, Sansa leaned against Jaime’s shoulder, tucking her damp head a little under his chin.

Their affair was considered an open secret among the noble houses of the North, as such things usually were. Whatever happened within the Queen’s chambers was her business, and her business alone. By no means however, did the two flaunt what they were doing in the faces of the Northern Houses; there were limits and Jaime abided by them, never mind that he hated all the secrecy.

Regardless, whatever moments he could steal, he treasured. The reprieve they were enjoying at the moment - between the battle for Winterfell and the coming conflict - was coming to an end. It was something he could feel in his very bones; years of engaging in constant warfare had given him an unwelcome instinct for impending violence.

The fat maester of Winterfell chose that moment to burst into the hall, hurrying towards them with all the speed his large form could muster.

The two did not spring apart from each other as those guilty of some torrid crime would have. Out of everyone in Winterfell, the maester bore the least illusion as to what was transpiring between his Queen and the son of Tywin Lannister. 

In fact, Jaime was quite certain that the man had brewed Moon Tea for Sansa on at least two separate occasions in the time since he had first settled in Winterfell. It wasn’t a thought that brought him much comfort. 

There was a part of him that wondered what it would be like to father a child with Sansa…welcomed the notion, even. But he was in no position to make any such demands, and given the times they lived in, the idea of bringing a babe into the world seemed almost cruel. 

The Lord Commander watched the other man’s approach with growing dread, somehow knowing that their fragile peace was about to be smashed into a million pieces.

“There’s been a raven Your Grace,” he huffed.

The woman sighed, reaching without thought to take the parchment that was held out to her. However, her movements froze at the very last, as she hovered her hand over the maester’s own. With a sinking heart, Jaime caught a glimpse of the symbol stamped clearly into red wax. Reluctantly, Sansa took the message from the older man, and proceeded to break the fragile seal.

“She can’t be serious.” Sansa laughed disbelievingly, passing the scrap to her companion when she had finished reading its contents. “Surely your sister is not expecting me to answer these summons. I didn't answer the last one - what makes her think I'd answer this?”

With a quick gesture, Jaime dismissed the maester who scurried away, before reading through the brief message for himself. 

Sighing, he crushed the parchment in his good hand and looked down at the Queen pacing restlessly beside him. 

“If Cersei Lannister wants another Stark prisoner she can come here and take me."

“Its utterly mad.” Jaime replied carefully. “But…Sansa, this summons differs quite a bit from the last one. Cersei claims the Dragon Queen and your brother will both be there. She would have had no way of knowing that Jon Snow was treating with the Daenerys Targaryen at this very moment. Not unless they had purposefully revealed this to her.”

“I can’t go. I cannot answer this.” Sansa shook her head vehemently. “And there’s no one I could send in my stead. Bran won’t speak except in riddles. I could send Arya, but she would just get herself killed, or worse.”

“If every Queen in the Seven Kingdoms will be in attendance…”

“There is already a Northern representative – Jon.” Sansa said adamantly.

“You and I both know Cersei will not treat with a bastard.” Jaime said. He hesitated before he ploughed on. “Out of everyone here, the only one who stands a chance of leaving the Red Keep alive is me.”

“What if she tries to keep you there? Clap you in irons and lock you away?” Sansa asked.

It would have been a fair question to ask anyone but him. Even now, Jaime could not bring himself to believe that Cersei could or would ever harm him. 

Nonetheless, he doubted Sansa would see the sense in his logic when it came to his twin, much less appreciate it. 

“We don’t truly have an option.”

The Queen gazed forlornly into the fire, her eyes bereft of hope. Her hair hung in wet ribbons around her wan face, and suddenly, he was brought to mind the tortured and desperate girl he had smuggled out of Winterfell. Uncaring of what any prying eyes might see, he moved close to her and gathered her into his arms, pressing her body against his protectively. 

“We could send Brienne.” Sansa said at last, pulling away.

“Unless you want the Captain of your Guard returned to you in separate pieces, I think not.” he replied grimly. “Cersei hated the wench. She took it into her head some misbegotten notion that Brienne was my lover.”

The woman was being more stubborn that usual, Jaime thought. They both knew the answer to the question at hand, unsavoury though it was. Between the two of them, it was hard to say who hated more, the very thought of facing Cersei again. 

However…

“Sansa, I’d wager the message was never truly meant for you.” he said quietly, studying the Queen’s face in the flickering light. 

There it was - that jealous glint in her eyes that he had seen from time to time, and which flared to life now like a corrosive fire. 

“So that’s it then. You’d just ride South to be by her side?” Sansa spat.

Jaime fought to keep from losing his temper. He had a good twenty years on the Queen - surely he was capable of maintaining his composure. 

“I would ride South as _your_ Lord Commander to represent Winterfell.” he said very carefully, purposefully throwing the parchment into the roaring fire as if it meant nothing. For good or ill, he knew what to say and do when it came to jealous lovers. “I would ride South to keep you from ever having to set foot in the Red Keep ever again.”

Disbelievingly, he watched as she - the Queen in the North - sulked and wrapped her arms around herself petulantly. Sighing, he stepped forward and grasped her right hand. 

“Cersei as good as killed Myrcella with her own foolish spite. And if I had to guess, Tommen…” his breath hitched, but he forced himself to soldier on. “Tommen is dead likely because of her conceit. If you think for a moment that I…”

Sansa silenced him with a kiss, swallowing the words he was choking out with difficulty. When it ended, he could see the apology in her blue eyes, coupled with the ever present fear she suffered at any mention of Cersei.

“I don’t want to lose you.” she said softly. “I’ve lost so much. Jon was here but now he’s gone, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. Bran and Arya…they’re as strangers to me in so many ways. You’re the only constant I have left.”

“We don’t have a choice.” his voice was filled with regret. “I’m afraid this is a summons we have to answer…and I am your only hope in this matter.”

“Jaime I…” she cupped his cheek. “I love you.”

He opened his mouth, trying to find the words he knew he had within him somewhere. But she continued, rushing through her next words. 

“I want us to be married. When you return to Winterfell…when you return to me, I would like us to be wed.” 

The Lord Commander stared at his Queen, allowing her words to sink in. A slow grin began to curve upon his lips.

“Your Grace, are you proposing marriage to your lowly servant?” he drawled, left hand moving to encompass the small of her back. 

“I believe you are mistaking a command for a proposal.” she laughed, even as the tears threatened to fall from her eyes.

“Far be it from me to disobey my Queen,” he replied, his voice growing low. “Your Grace…what will your people say?”

“I suppose they’d laud me for joining the houses of Stark and Lannister, ending years of strife and vengeance.” Her smile as fierce as any wolf’s.

The adoration in his gaze was unmistakable as he looked down at her shining face in awe. 

“I love you.” he said at last. “I will love you long after this noise has long since passed.”

“You will be named the Lord Protect…” she never got to finish. Jaime didn’t much care. She could have named him Horse Master, and his heart would still have burst with something that felt suspiciously like joy and traitorously like hope, the latter of which he could ill afford.

***

The next few days were spent hastily conferring with multiple individuals as Jaime looked to ensure that all his efforts would be upheld in his absence. He oversaw the weapons stockpile, looked to the barrels of pitch and saw to the volume of fuel they had sequestered. He spoke with Lord after Lord, emphasizing the strategic defensive positions he had spent hours plotting, both to the North and to the South. 

Through it all, Brienne stood beside him, listening carefully to his every word, learning all she could as quickly as she was able to. In quieter moments, she looked beseechingly at him, large eyes filled with mute appeal. 

The nights were spent moving together with Sansa, as Jaime tried to prolong one moment to the next in a desperate bid to simply hold on to all that was good in his life. Once he left the confines of the castle, once he rode away from the frigid North, he knew that whatever awaited him on the other side would be too unbearable to think upon, let alone exist in. 

***

He had not thought that Arya would answer his summons the night before he left, but she stood beside Brienne, glaring at him with her usual disdain.

Unbuckling his sword belt, Jaime handed to Brienne his weapon, re-gifting Oathkeeper once again to the Maid of Tarth. Turning to Arya, he met her dark eyes without flinching.

“If you won’t trust me, trust your brother. That dagger you wear at your hip - it will save your life and the lives of everyone around.” he stated flatly. “That is, if the dead truly march upon us.”

Perhaps it was only his imagination, but she appeared taken aback as she asked in almost child-like wonder, “Do you really think they might be coming?”

He said nothing, because he had no good answer. Clapping his good hand on the wench’s shoulder, he gripped it tightly. Brienne grasped at his right arm in kind as she forced herself to smile, though her eyes betrayed her true sentiments. Her right hand was gripping so hard on the pommel of Oathkeeper, her knuckles had turned white.“Keep her safe.” he told the wench, even as his gaze flickered to Arya, who offered him the slightest of nods. His green eyes focused back on Brienne’s sapphire ones. “And stay safe yourself. Should I hear that harm has befallen you, I’m afraid it would much sadden me.”

“Same as you Jaime Lannister.” Brienne said in all seriousness. “I’m unsure of a world without you in it.”

Ruffling her hair, he pressed his forehead tightly against her own. In so many ways, the Maid of Tarth had become the star to which he had hitched his broken wagon. 

***

That night, he lingered over Sansa’s body, memorizing every last sigh, every last shudder. He kissed her as a man starved, holding her so close to him, he thought that perhaps she would seep into his very soul.

But morning came, and with it, the clarity that his road lay to the South. As he gathered his things, he looked down to the yard, where Podrick was already waiting with a readied mount. The squire stood in the company of a few other men and women Jaime had handpicked from the Northern houses - knights and soldiers he could trust not to kill him in his sleep. 

Sansa wrapped her arms around him from the back, resting her chin on his shoulder. 

“Come back to me.” she whispered. “Don’t…don’t swear it by the gods, or on your life. You and I, we have enough oaths between us to last us to the day we die. Just come back to me.”

Turning in her arms, he kissed his betrothed one last time in farewell. Without another word, he gently pulled himself from her warm embrace and walked out of her chambers, and out of Winterfell.


	2. All Ye Who Enter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime learns of all the fun stuff he's been missing since he left

Winter pulled away with every mile they rode. Scarce a week after they had set forth from Winterfell, all around them, Autumn was re-asserting itself in all its golden splendour. As much as he loathed every second that took him further from Sansa, Jaime could not help but appreciate the luxury of being able to breathe without his chest hurting from the cold.

Podrick, having shed his own cloak, was wont to smile at the sounds of birdsong overhead. 

“The North is beautiful and all…but ser, there are still flowers to be found here.” he had pointed out in wonder. Indeed, the ground surrounding the Kingsroad was still carpeted in the yellow blooms of late Summer.

“Aye, but I miss the silence that snow brings with it.” one of their companions named Evin said earnestly. “There’s a purity in it; allows a man to think.”

“Don’t waste your time arguing with these Northmen Pod,” Jaime chuckled. “They won’t see sense.”

Leaving his squire to deal with the good natured fallout of his comment, Jaime rode ahead of his small van.

The journey was progressing faster than he had anticipated. Then again, he wasn’t travelling with a royal convoy, nor was he trailing some circuitous route, trying to catch up with those who did not wish to be found. The roads were clear, and any brigands who thought to stop them, had probably taken a good look at their armaments, and thought better of their intentions.

With any luck, he would be in and out of King’s Landing in a heartbeat…and riding back to his bride. The thought - pleasant as it was - still required getting used to. That is, the idea that he was to marry at all. 

When he had taken his oaths to Aerys, when he had sworn vows of purity and abstinence, both Cersei and he had known that the vows were never for the sake of upholding the virtues of the Kingsguard. His sister had desired simply to keep him safe from the threat of other women, and to keep him close to her always, when she inevitably became a member of the court in King’s Landing. As if he were naught but a favoured toy.

Regardless, when he had abandoned his post to follow the wench, he might as well have set fire to his white cloak - the difference was minimal.

As evening approached, the five of them made camp a little ways from the main road. He noted with approval that Podrick’s skills had improved no little amount since the day they had set out together from the city, in what felt like another life. Jaime looked upon the young man with something that felt like pride.

A few feet away, Alissa, one of their new archers, tended to a small cookfire. The young woman was of an age with Sansa, but carried herself with all the gawky confidence of a young faun, a world apart from the Queen she served. When she thought her Lord Commander’s attention was elsewhere, Jaime couldn’t help but notice the furtive glances she kept casting in his direction.

When he had first taken to squiring, he had noticed the regard some of the young men in his company had borne for the older knights. For that matter, he supposed Brienne herself suffered from just such a malady when it came to Renly Baratheon. As much as he had no true interest in the undeniable comeliness of Alissa’s form, it amused and flattered him to be the focus of such attention.

Until Calum, an older knight of House Mormont laughed aloud and said, “Alissa sweetling, you’re wasting your youth eyein’ Ser Jaime. He’s spoken for by the Queen herself I hear. Now me, I’m a free man, and I’d be happy to show you a thing or two…”

Everyone froze except Jaime, who continued in his task of running an oiled rag over the blade of his dagger. Half a hundred curses blazed through his mind however, as he tried to gather his own dignity. 

Finally, he commanded very quietly, “Ser Calum, you will apologize to Alissa, and you will do it now, in my hearing.”

The man, who had paled quite a bit the moment he realized his crude jape would not be appreciated, stuttered a halting apology to the pale young woman. 

Podrick, it seemed, was the only one who had the presence of mind to simply start speaking on other matters. If he sat a little closer to Alissa than was wont between brothers-in-arms, Jaime didn’t truly object. Gods knew, they could all have used some comfort in times such as these, and Pod was, in his eyes, the most deserving of it.

***

Winter eventually caught up with them as they crossed the borders between the North and the South. Cold winds swept across barren fields, leaving behind sheets of white frost in its wake.

They were close now, to the gates of the city. Already, the spires of the Red Keep were becoming visible on the horizon. After weeks of riding, Jaime supposed he should have been grateful to have finally come to the end of his journey, but the same dread that had haunted him since he left Winterfell had been growing with every mile.

Droves of smallfolk in wagons and carriages were, like them, inching their way towards King’s Landing. Weary faces greeted him at every turn, and it seemed to him that not one of them truly wanted to be in the city. But with winter nipping at their heels, there was nothing for it but to seek shelter.

When finally, they approached the gates of King’s Landing, a Red Cloak rode out to greet them.

“Well met Ser Jaime, I see you have returned to us.” Hopefulness shone in the man’s eyes.

“Not quite…” he hesitated. “I am here in the service of the Queen in the North.”

“So the rumours are true,” the man’s cheer dissolved. Jaime waited for the insults, and for the man to ride away in a huff. Instead, the Red Cloak said, “Ser…it is good to see the son of Tywin Lannister, no matter the circumstance. Would that we served with you.”

With that, he rode back towards the city, leaving a bemused Jaime staring after him.

“They say the North remembers. “ Evin said as he came up from behind. “Seems to me, it isn’t just us that have long memories.”

The Lord Commander looked thoughtfully at the knight beside him, before shaking his head to clear it. 

“Come. The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we get to leave this place.”

***

The city stank as much as it ever did, Jaime thought as their horses picked their way through the crowded streets. Though, he realized as they proceeded closer to the Red Keep, there was a distinct difference in the stench…something horribly familiar that tugged at his worst memories.

It was the smell of wildfire fumes; it was the smell of human flesh burning in ruthless green flames. Rubbing at his skin, Jaime looked down in horror at the oily grey ash that was settling in a thin film upon his very person. 

How often had his nightmares sought to remind him of the screams, and the flames, and the ashes of so-called traitors that had burned before the Mad King?

“Ser…look to the Sept of Baelor…” Podrick said in a voice of one about to become faint.

Jaime looked, although he was deathly afraid of the sight that would greet him.

On the hill where the Sept had stood, there was nothing but a ruin, one that still smoked and burned with eerie green flames in certain places. Water did nothing to put wildfire out, he remembered - one had to let the flames burn themselves out.

“Who did this?” he asked, knowing the answer even as he spoke.

“I’ve heard tell that King’s Landing was an evil place.” Alissa’s voice shook. “I never imagined…”

“My Lords, I was told you had arrived.” a Red Cloak called as he approached the Northern party on foot with two other soldiers by his side. “If you’d be so kind as to follow me, I will take you to the Dragonpit where everyone is gathering. My men will see to your mounts.”

Warily, Jaime studied the man before him until recognition finally sank in. “Vylarr. I see you still serve as Captain.”

“Aye my lord.” the man did not look pleased. “And I see you still rightly bear the crest of the Lion, even if it stands now with the Wolf.”

Dismounting slowly, he signalled that the others should do the same. 

“Much has happened since you left Ser Jaime.” Vylarr said, his grey eyes betraying his troubled thoughts. “None of it good.”

The two other Red Cloaks took the mounts of the Northerners and guided them away. The Northern delegation began to follow Vylarr down a separate path.

“I would not have you betray your confidences…” Jaime started.

“It would not be a betrayal to you. _You_ are Tywin’s eldest son - it is to you I owe my true fealty, at the end of it.” the man said staunchly. 

Where before, he could easily have said that his oaths to the Kingsguard meant that he could never have deserved the fealty of any Lannister men, it occurred to Jaime that none of it applied any longer. 

“Tell me.”

*** 

The Captain of the Lannister Guard finally stopped speaking, and it was just as well, because Jaime had heard enough. Podrick walked to his other side, looking distinctly more nervous with every word spoken.

“We would ride with you when you leave, if you will have us.” Vylarr said. “We will not serve Queen Cersei. Not anymore.”

 _Old women being whipped through the streets,_ Jaime thought in disbelief. _Half the Red Cloaks dead by dragon fire. Sweet sister, what have you done?_

Then there was the matter of his uncle Kevan and his cousin Lancel. With the both of them dead - again at Cersei's hand - he had the dubious honour of being the oldest living Lannister male.

_At the rate they murdered their own, all their enemies had to do was wait, and the Lannister name would no doubt, fade into nothing more than a bad memory. Would that their Lord Father knew what had become of his legacy,_ Jaime thought with a certain sadistic satisfaction. 

Betrothed to Sansa though he was, Jaime had few illusions as to whose name their children would bear. After all, there must always be a Stark at Winterfell.

The onus to carry on the family name fell squarely on the shoulders of his siblings. Gods only knew if Cersei could bear a child without killing it, he thought churlishly, or if Tyrion would live long enough to father a child of his own. 

“Get your men and my horses. Wait for me outside the city…I have no wish to linger more than I must.” Jaime ordered, his tone brooking no argument. Relieved, Vylarr left his side and hurried to comply.

Rounding a corner, the Lord Commander of Winterfell paused as an unmistakable figure stopped before him in shock. 

“Well met Lord Tyrion!” Podrick called in a tone that bordered on hysteria. 

“Pod. Well met indeed.” the dwarf greeted uncomfortably. Everyone around kept moving in the direction of the Dragonpit, though more than a few passerbys cast curious glances at the two brothers. Jaime glared down at Tyrion, incapable of finding any words. 

Here was the man who killed their father, and who put his daughter in the care of her murderers. 

Bronn, his old mentor, shuffled uncomfortably beside his shorter employer.

“Pod. Do tell of all the pretty Northern girls I’m sure you’ve become acquainted with.” the sellsword said, reaching out and grabbing the hapless squire’s elbow, yanking him so that the younger man had no choice but to leave the siblings to their own private hell. 

“Brother, you’re looking well.” Tyrion started, before Jaime could turn to leave. 

“Let’s not waste words.” the knight strode quickly after his own men. Beside him, his brother struggled to keep up.

“Jaime please. I was sorry to hear of what happened with the children…I can’t even imagine…”

“Myrcella is dead because of you.” Jaime stopped walking, his voice coarse with unshed tears. “You might as well have been the one to wield the weapon that ended her life, the way you ended our Lord Father’s.”

“How could I have known that things would have played out the way they did?” Tyrion asked, his own expression wrecked with grief. “I would _never_ have knowingly put Myrcella in danger. As for Father, he wanted to _kill_ me. If you had been here you would have known…”

“It no longer matters…” Jaime said, looking down into his brother’s mismatched eyes. “None of it matters. They’re dead and gone, all of them.”

For a moment, Tyrion’s face crumpled, his scars becoming even more grotesquely obvious. It gratified Jaime to know that his brother was suffering for his sins.

Slowly, the Lord Commander turned and resumed his steps, albeit at a slower pace, allowing Tyrion to walk by his side. After a moment, the smaller man began to speak again in cautious tones.

“I’m glad to hear from Jon Snow that Sansa is well…” he glanced at Jaime’s cloak. “And that you serve as her Lord Commander. Funny old world, with the Lannister children all serving different Queens. Well, one of them _is_ a Queen…”

Jaime said nothing.

“I tried to protect her you know.” Tyrion continued. “As I told Jon, our marriage was never consummated.”

“Ah yes. Your _chivalry_ …did you know that because of your chivalry, because you turned your marriage to Sansa into nothing more than a sham, Petyr Baelish was able to sell her like one of his whores to Ramsay Bolton, who raped and cut her every single night in their _marital_ bed?” Jaime took savage pleasure in the pain he was inflicting upon his brother. “Or did Jon not tell you all the ways in which you _saved_ her?”

“No…no he did not.” Tyrion looked horrorstruck at the realization of what he had truly cost his former bride. “Is she…”

“The Queen in the North is no longer any of your concern.” Jaime spat as they stepped into the sandy clearing of the Dragonpit. “And as for you and I…we’re finished here.”

“Brother, please…” Tyrion begged brokenly.

Jaime refused to look back as he made to rejoin his Northern knights.

***

He didn’t know which was worse. Having to wait in oppressive silence as Tyrion stared at him in abject misery, or having to put up with Cersei’s ceaseless glaring…

The sight of his sister’s short hair had made his heart squeeze painfully for a moment; it had almost, almost spurred him to her side, to hold her as once he had held her. 

_They forced her through the streets naked, with her hair shorn to the bone, like she was a common harlot,_ Vylarr had said. 

But then he remembered the still-burning sept and the streets filled with ash…and the understanding of why Tommen had died by his own hand. His heart hardened towards her for the last time. 

Of course, on top of his ludicrous siblings, there were the bloody Greyjoys to consider. Euron Greyjoy’s psychopathic smirking made him long for his golden hand, that he might smash the man’s skull into smithereens. From behind him, the Greyjoy whelp looked at him with his wide, beseeching eyes, wordlessly craving answers he had no patience to provide.

 _By the gods_ , Jaime thought, _what he wouldn’t give for something to kill._

***

After that however, there was no more room to think upon such things: the dragons landed, and the dead awoke. 

After that, the world delved into nothing but panic for a while.


	3. Hotel California

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime proves why he should not be in PR. 
> 
> There is a lot of catty stuff.

Jaime was barely listening to the words being bandied about between the Queens and their peons. How anyone could still speak coherently, to think with clarity was quite beyond him. In the past few minutes, he had just witnessed the impossible, watching as a dead man clawed its ragged hands towards the living with myopic, malicious intent.

That was, until his sister’s words caught his attention.

“…The crown accepts your truce. Until the dead are defeated they are the true enemy. In return, the Queen in the North will extend this truce. She will remain in the North where she belongs, and will not take up arms against my people, or choose sides.”

Almost predictably, Daenerys Targaryen spoke up. “Just the Queen in the North, not me?”

“I would never ask it of you. I didn’t think for a second you would ever agree, and if you did, I would never believe you. I ask it of Sansa Stark’s Lord Commander…I know my brother will be true to his word.” Cersei’s emerald eyes rested challenging on his. 

His sister sought to bait him even now, he realized. Even after what she had just seen, she would not let her petty vendettas go.

Something snapped inside Jaime. After everything he had learned since he had stepped into King’s Landing, after having to face Tyrion, and after witnessing the unholy thing that currently lay in broken pieces before them, he was in no mood to play his sister’s games.

“I don’t exactly hear you saying that _you_ will not take up arms against the North.“ Jaime scowled at his twin. “All I’m hearing is a lot of pretty words, asking for us to lay down our defences against _your_ armies.”

“What are you accusing me of, exactly?” Cersei’s eyes flashed.

“I don’t think Jaime is accusing you of anything, just questioning your choice of words in this exchange.” Tyrion interjected in alarm.

“Our brother is right, I’m simply stating that you have not in fact, indicated implicitly that _you_ will not march upon the North.” Jaime was keenly aware that all eyes were upon him. 

“Are you stupid? I just said…” his twin stood up in exasperation.

“You _must_ think I’m stupid to trust anything you have to say.” Jaime bit out.

It was probably Ser Davos who muttered something about how they were all well and truly fucked.

“If we can’t agree on this, then I’m afraid there is nothing else to say.” Cersei stepped off her podium with a rustle of her heavy skirts. Silently, everyone in the Dragonpit watched as she departed with her train of followers. 

***

In hindsight, Jaime had to admit that perhaps, just perhaps, he could have played his role as Sansa’s emissary a little better. 

“Could you not have found it within yourself to _try_ getting along with Cersei?” Tyrion berated Jaime, all else forgotten for the moment. “I get it. She’s a horrible woman, our sister. But you do understand this means we’re all still in open war against her?”

“If you knew what we went through to get that wight here…if you knew what we _lost._ ” Jon said in quiet despair. Ser Davos stood beside Jon with a distinctly hopeless air about him.

“She wasn’t exactly being reasonable.” Jaime drawled, pointedly ignoring the poisonous looks Daenerys Targaryen was throwing his way. 

The fair haired would-be Queen had murdered half the Lannister army in one cruel gesture. He’d be damned before he bowed and scraped at the feet of yet another liege mad with power. 

“It’s not as if I could have promised to throw our weapons in the dirt, when I have no promise that she would not march against us.”

“Seven hells Jaime, you sound as much a child as she does! This is our childhood all over again.” Tyrion ripped at his blonde curls in frustration. “As per bloody usual, I’m in the middle of one of your fights.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily call this simply a fight…” Jaime couldn’t help but add. Tyrion cast him a thunderous look that promptly silenced him. 

“Lord Commander, we’ve seen all we needed to see.” Calum spoke up, nodding a greeting at Jon. “It’s clear we need to return North immediately.”

“I’m afraid the hour is growing late.” Jon sighed in resignation. “All this bickering has done nothing…”

“I’ll be taking a hundred Lannister men with me.” Jaime said, reaching out to grasp at Jon’s shoulder with his good hand. Tyrion eyed the gesture with something that resembled envy, but his older brother could not bring himself to care. “It’s not a lot, but it’s something.”

“Aye. I would that you and your men take a case of dragonglass weapons we’ve brought with us.” Jon said. “Ser Davos, will you show Ser Calum the way?”

As the two hurried off, Jon stared at the oldest Lannister son tiredly. “Every word your sister speaks rings false in my ears. And I would hazard that Sansa would rather be allied with Daenerys, than to be strong-armed into a farce of an alliance with Cersei.”

“I suppose Tyrion’s right and I could have handled it better. I could have left room for negotiation.” Jaime admitted as his younger brother snorted. 

“I’m not overly fond of blunting things behind half-truths.” Jon frowned. “In all honesty, perhaps you did the right thing.”

“The right thing will not get us what we want.” Tyrion protested. 

Jon looked away for a moment, his gaze distant. “I received good tidings from Winterfell, among other news. How fare my siblings?”

“Arya works daily with the soldiers, and Bran…he speaks only in riddles…” Jaime paused. In his mind’s eye, he suddenly saw Sansa waiting for him in the Godswood, her red hair a stark contrast against the blinding white. It wasn’t enough to take away the stings of the day, but the thought of her blue eyes was enough to bring the barest of grins to his lips. “Your sister rules and rules well.”

Jon somehow found it within himself to summon a smile of his own.

“There’s more. Jon, Sansa and I….” Jaime trailed off, looking over Jon’s shoulder. Tyrion turned around to watch as a handmaiden hurried into the sandy clearing, making straight for the Lord Commander of Winterfell.

***

Gregor Clegane, or whatever was left of him, stood at attention outside Cersei’s door. Tyrion, who had insisted on following both Jaime and the Queen’s handmaiden, shuddered. 

“It would seem we cannot avoid this particular corpse. What are your odds against him do you think?”

“Honestly?” Jaime muttered. “I think I’d stand a better chance against an actual mountain.”

“You will wait here.” the strange young woman with neatly shorn hair ordered his younger brother. When Tyrion looked as if he were about to protest, Jaime shook his head in silent warning, his eyes flickering to the monstrosity that lurked before them menacingly. Much as Tyrion was not his favourite individual at present, he was not keen on the notion of watching Gregor pulverizing his little brother. 

He might have to do something stupid like try to avenge Tyrion, and the Mountain would simply need to bring a massive foot down to put an end to his own, sorry life.

His own heart pounding with dread, Jaime forced himself to stay calm as he was brought into the Queen’s chambers. That she had not summoned her terrifying bodyguard into the chamber spoke volumes of how she did not fear her twin, the same way he held no fear that she would harm his person. 

It was cold comfort to know that there were still constants he could count on, as far as the two of them were concerned.

From her place behind their Father’s desk, Cersei surveyed him with barely concealed vitriol as brother and sister were left alone.

“Did you answer my summons for the sole purpose of flaunting your betrayal?” her voice was oily with rage.

“I answered your summons on behalf of my Queen.” Jaime replied. “I represent her interests in this matter. Not well, admittedly…”

“Your Queen.” she stood up, spreading her palms on the dark wood before her. Her fingernails clawed loudly against the polished surface.

Looking at her form, he could not help but acknowledge that he still found her beautiful. Exquisitely so, even without her golden mane. He was loathe to admit it, but a part of him still wanted her, wanted to take her hard against the stone walls that surrounded them.

But the overwhelming disgust he felt eclipsed everything else.

“You would call her Your Queen.”

“I would call her my betrothed, but that's neither here nor there.” he couldn’t help himself. He could feel his face twisting into something as ugly as the _thing_ between them which once he had called love. The thing he would have killed and maimed others for, and did in fact, kill and main others for.

Shrieking in rage, she launched herself at him. As she moved to strike him, Jaime gripped her wrist with his left hand, and forced her trembling form away. 

“I loved you, and you left me.” she hissed, pulling away and rubbing at her skin as though she had been burned by his touch. “You abandoned me when I needed you.”

“I had to.” he looked at the face that was mirror to his own. “I had an oath to fulfill.”

“And what of all the promises you made _me_?” she asked. “Where were you when I was humiliated, and beaten and marched like a whore through the streets? Fucking your child lover?”

Jaime tried - hard - to summon a vision of Sansa. He tried to imagine her smiling at him from under the wintry boughs of Winterfell. He tried to imagine anything else at all, to detract from the hell he was just now finding himself in. It was a place devoid of hope, and life, and anything that resembled what was good and just in the world. 

Jaime tried to go away inside, but found every way lost to him.

“Where were you when our children died?” Cersei demanded, her red lips stretched back in a hideous snarl. 

“Don’t you dare throw their deaths in my face. If it weren’t for your spite and your ambition, they’d still be here.” he hissed. “Tommen would never have…”

“Tommen betrayed me!”

That was when Jaime saw it, saw the madness peeking through her unnaturally bright eyes. The harsh realization nearly took his breath away.

“There is nothing more for us to discuss. I have to return to my duties in the North. If I were you…after what we saw today, I would truly consider the Dragon Queen’s offer of truce.” he straightened his body. “As for Winterfell, we will not lift a finger against you unless so provoked. Do we have an understanding?”

She stared at him as if he were a stranger.

“I could have you killed before you returned to that pretender whore. But I want you to live, so you get to watch as I have her used by every last man in King’s Landing, the day I take back what is mine by right.” 

“Cersei, I would remind you. I have killed better men than you.” Jaime moved so swiftly, he could see that he had caught her by surprise. Without even realizing what he was doing, his dagger was drawn and angled close to her pale, elegant throat. So accustomed to defending his Queen, to protecting Sansa, it was clear his body had reacted unthinkingly in response to his sister’s vile threats. Truly, he was more Sansa’s creature, than she was his.

Jaime had never been able to love another, without giving away all of himself.

Nonetheless, in control of his own actions now, the man knew he would never actually be able to use the blade against his sister, but the spark of fear in Cersei’s eyes betrayed the fact that his twin felt no such assurances. “Threaten Sansa again…and no amount of love we once shared will save you. Are. We. Clear?”

“I could summon Gregor in here and have him take your head.” she said in a tremulous voice.

“It’ll take no more than a second for me to finish this.” he replied in a low, deadly voice, pushing the blade ever so slightly closer to her skin. “He’ll never reach you in time.”

Their bodies were pressed together, and their breaths came hot and fast, all of it a mockery of their lost passion. Satisfied that he had made his point, Jaime put away his weapon and turned to leave.

“She’ll never love you the way I love you.” Cersei called almost brokenly against his retreating back.

“Good. I don’t need her to.” he did not so much as break his stride as he left her standing on her own.

***

He found his companions waiting for him back in the Dragonpit, and beckoned for them to follow him out of the city, one which both the Old Gods and the New had obviously forsaken.

By the time Jon, Tyrion and Bronn found him, he was making his final preparations to depart. Behind him, a considerably larger force than the one he had arrived with was preparing to leave with him. Every other soldier wore a dagger of dragonglass at their belts or had a spear tipped with obsidian strapped to their backs. Archers like Alissa possessed newly fletched arrows in their quivers, similarly tipped with the black material.

“I see you survived your audience.” Jaime called to Tyrion, finding himself filled with relief. His younger brother, looking pathetically grateful for the sentiment, nodded in response. 

“It is good for these men to follow you. You are after all the eldest son…” Tyrion started, as if their presence was a boon he was extending graciously to his brother. “You should know that Cersei has changed her mind. She has informed me that she will agree to our terms of truce. All of it. I have extracted an oath that she will not march on the North as long as the threat of the Night King remains. Brother…we all fight on the same side now.”

Jaime looked at him impassively. It was all one to him, what Cersei decided, or said she decided.

“I expect all our paths will cross again, for good or ill.” Jaime replied at last.

“I’d like to ride with you if that’s alright. I’ve had my fill of fighting with the cockless wonders and those fire breathing creatures.” Bronn spoke up unexpectedly. Tyrion looked up at him in shock, but the sellsword ignored him.

The Captain of the Red Cloaks had told him of the Unsullied incursion on Casterly Rock, and the slaughter of all the men who held it. This was even as Euron Greyjoy’s fleet was looting the Reach. The kraken scum had sailed away from Highgarden transporting both its captured matriarch and its gold, leaving Lannister men and their allies setting off on foot towards their doomed fate at the vengeful flames of the Dragon Queen.

The Lannister men-at-arms had two choices: serve Queen Daenerys, who slaughtered their fellows with her savage dragons, or serve Queen Cersei, who had allied herself with a reaving maniac. It was no wonder the men had been desperate for any other choice.

“I can’t pay you.” Jaime said. “My brother here holds Casterly Rock with his Queen, along with whatever gold Robert Baratheon and my sweet sister did not manage to pour away. They drained our gold as surely as they drained their flagons.”

“Ah, but Lord Tyrion promised me not only gold. He promised me castles that I have yet to see, and a bride I have yet to meet.” Bronn’s sharp smile belied the dark misgiving in his eyes. Jaime didn’t really blame him for his open defection; all the riches in the world could not hide the true nature of monsters. “I hear from Pod there’s at least one empty castle in the North, and all the sweet lasses I could want.”

“Well, I suppose someone’s going to need to see to the Dreadfort.” Jaime smirked, both at the man’s frankness and at Tyrion’s flabbergasted expression. “Best go find yourself a horse then.”

“You can’t just give away our castles.” Jon admonished with good humour, as Bronn shrugged at a fuming Tyrion, before taking his leave to do as he had been bid. “Stay safe Jaime. I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: I would not see my sister weep because of you.”

“Jon - your sister and I.” Jaime blurted out. “She has commanded that we are to be wed when I return.”

The other man looked as if he had just tasted something both sour and sweet all at once. Unexpectedly, Jon pulled Jaime into an awkward embrace even as he threatened, “By the Gods, if you hurt her, I will end you.”

Jaime chuckled, trying to ignore the look of increasing envy on Tyrion’s face. He couldn’t tell if it was because of his betrothal to Sansa, or because of his unexpected closeness to Jon. If he knew his brother however, and he did, it was likely the latter that caused him such distress.

“I’ll let you end me.” he promised. 

As they broke apart, all three men looked Northward. 

“I suppose we march onwards and so forth.” Jon said bleakly.

“Aye.” Jaime thought of the sightless sockets of the wight. “Onwards.”

As was befitting, the wisest of the three said nothing, simply looking to the horizon in dread.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Jaime was not at KL, there would have been no one to show mercy to Olenna Tyrell, or to remove most of his own men from Casterly Rock before an attack he knew was coming...
> 
> Speaking of, as there is nowhere in the main narrative to post this tiny scene:  
> ***
> 
> She sneered at the aged woman at her feet, whose skin was lacerated and bleeding in multiple places. Every twitch looked like agony, and Cersei felt a certain satisfaction at the sight.
> 
> "Do you have anything left to say? Any barb you wanted to sting me with, oh Mistress of Thorns?” the Queen asked softly, crouching down to meet the eyes of her old nemesis. “Where is your Targaryen bitch now, for whom you looked to betray me to?”
> 
> “Did you think…” Olenna coughed. Blood bubbled at the side of her cracked lips. “Did you think I would have let Margaery marry that little shit you called a son, or let Loras be named Kingslayer the day he would most certainly have slain Joffrey?”
> 
> Cersei gazed at her in incomprehension.
> 
> “I did it you twit.” the matriarch of the Tyrell family shuddered with the effort of speaking. “I was the one who killed Joffrey. I want you to know that.”
> 
> “Lies! You think you can still hurt me,” Cersei hissed. “It was my brother who…”
> 
> "I have no reason to lie to you. But all the reason to have killed him…” Olenna began to cough again.
> 
> After a long silence, Cersei glanced to her right, where Qyburn waited for her orders.
> 
> “I’ve changed my mind. She will not die here today.” she ordered, green eyes glittering. “Consider this a gift unto you, for any use you see fit…but Qyburn…my only wish, is that you ensure Lady Tyrell has a long life ahead of her.”
> 
> With a nod, Qyburn gestured at the Red Cloaks beside him, who hesitated before stepping forwards.
> 
> “Thank you for telling me the truth Olenna.” Cersei said, straightening up. “For your honesty, you will be fittingly rewarded…”
> 
> As they dragged the bloodied figure away however, she could feel nothing but a sucking emptiness within her chest.


	4. Demon Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fate (me) has other ideas on Jaime's journey back to Sansa. 
> 
> Caution: Bad zombie apocalypse cliches ahead, plus Lovecraftian references, plus, obscure reference from the novel (which I get the feeling won't be so obscure when GRRM finally gets around to writing the rest of his stuff one day). Anyway, there's a wedding in the next chapter if you stick around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So writing zombie crap without referencing modern weaponry is srsly hard. Like...I can't use the words 'headshot' or 'scope' or 'grenade'. I apologize for what you're about to read.

_"All hell is gonna break loose, when you find out what I'm into" Yeasayers, Demon Road_

***

The flickering lights of Harroway were a welcome sight. Snow was blowing over the land in thickening flurries by the time the Southrons and Northmen stepped into the settlement in relief. Regardless of the sorry state of the town - every bit as cramped and dirty as he remembered - at least the inn Jaime remembered from past journeys still stood. 

With a small measure of contentment, he took a pull of the mediocre ale the innkeep stocked, glad for the simple fact that he had put a respectable distance between himself and King’s Landing. The small establishment was filled to bursting with Lannister men of varying seniority, while the rest of the hundred strong group set up camp by the banks of the Trident.

As Jaime finished his dinner, Evin entered the common room and shook off the thick layer of snow that had settled on his shoulders and hair. Peering through the open door from which the older knight had stepped through, the Lord Commander frowned. He had not expected the snowfall to have increased quite as much as it had in the past hour. 

“This is more like it. Proper snow.” Evin grinned as shrugged off his cape. The man had been outside assisting his Southron companions, most of whom had no idea how to keep comfortable in a wintry landscape. 

“We have patrols in place?” Jaime asked as he stood up. He felt a strange trickle of apprehension at the memory of another blizzard he had seen not so long ago, forming on the other side of the Wall. The storm had come into full strength in an unnaturally short period of time. From beside him, Jon had warned of fell powers at work as they had looked upon the sight with misgivings in both their hearts.

And after what he had only just witnessed in the Dragonpit mere days ago…

“Yes ser, men are on duty.” Evin’s smile faded as he watched Jaime’s troubled frown deepening. “We have torches as well, set up every five feet.”

The Lord Commander lost all interest in his ale as he strapped on the spear that lay beside him. Podrick, who was seated beside him, leapt to his feet, his fumbling hands on the obsidian dagger in his belt. Knight and Squire left the inn together, walking out into the deepening cold, with Alissa following close behind. 

The squire and the archer seemed constantly in the company of each other in recent days, a fact which, at other times, might have made Jaime smile. Just then however, Jaime briefly considered asking her to stay behind, as was befitting a knight to a woman. But she was a soldier now, and it was very much a soldier’s duty to face danger. There was no point shielding her; it’d do more harm than good.

The three of them followed the edge of the temporary settlement, each of them eyeing the dark woods that bordered the camp in varying degrees of mistrust. The darkness between the trees looked like black, gaping maws, patiently waiting to swallow any morsel of flesh that passed close. Perhaps it was a trick of light against the snow, but Jaime thought he caught a flicker of blue light in the seeping blackness.

“The horses are uneasy.” Pod noted in a low voice. Indeed, several of the large beasts were whinnying in growing distress as they pulled at the straps that held them fast.

“Ser…there is something in the forest.” Alissa said, her voice surprisingly calm despite the alarm Jaime could feel emanating off her. Her hands were steady as she reached for her longbow. “It is watching us.”

Peering into the gloom, Jaime could practically hear his heart as it hammered against his ribcage.

A young girl stepped out of the tree line.

Her hair was long and red, her skin so pale it was almost luminescent. For one brief, heart stopping moment, Jaime was certain he was gazing upon the face of his lover…but realized quickly, with crushing relief that the figure in front of him was much younger…and that her skull had been staved into a mess of blood and bone above her right ear.

Slowly, the creature began to lurch towards him, one leg twisted in a way that indicated the bones beneath its waxy skin had been shattered. Brilliant blue eyes regarded him like chips of ice within sunken sockets. There was a rustling in the trees as more corpses were spat out from the encroaching darkness.

“Wights.” Jaime found his voice even as he heard it cracking. “Wights! Archers and spears!”

He drew his own weapon as archers stood in a shaky line. 

“Loose! LOOSE NOW!”

There was a flurry of hisses as the first arrows found their targets. As the decaying bodies crumbled however, an unearthly shriek began to filter through the trees. The voices of his men lifted in fear. From the corner of his eye, Jaime watched as a small number of soldiers began to back away, before openly fleeing. 

Jaime thrust the shaft of his spear at Podrick and ran towards a nearby horse. Already, more of the undead were beginning to take the places of their fallen comrades. Between the shrieks of the dead and the moans of the living, a hellish crescendo was forming. Clumsily, Jaime fumbled one handed at the straps that held the steed. When finally the stirrups pulled free, he swung himself onto the beast and grabbed a flaming torch.

Without pausing to think, he wound the leather straps around his right arm above the elbow, and galloped at full speed in front of the line of archers. Leaning down, he set fire to patches of dry brush where visible, praying that the snow would not put out the flames.

“Archers, fall back!” Someone screamed above the cacophony. It sounded like Vylarr, trying to save him from the sharp arrows of his own men, but he couldn’t be sure.

The flames sprung up to his intense relief, creating a river of bright orange that leapt between his men and the wights. The creatures stopped and stared motionlessly through the fire, biding their time as more of them continued to stream from the forest. Enough of them, for Jaime to understand that there was no defence he could mount, that would answer the threat.

One of them lifted a desiccated arm, and threw a rusted spear in Jaime’s direction. Without hesitation, the man pushed off his mount and dove into the frozen ground, feeling the juddering impact flow through every bone in his body.

“Gather the townsfolk!” he shouted scrambling to his feet. All around, frozen soldiers sprang to action. “We have to leave here now!”

Risking a quick glance back at malignant blue gazes, Jaime turned and began to run for his life.

***

“The fire won’t burn forever.” He shouted over the din. “We have to go now.”

“This is our town! These are our homes!” someone cried in the growing chaos. “We have to hold it!”

“Stay and die or come with us and live.” Jaime replied, climbing onto his mount. “Once that earth is scorched and there is nothing left to hold them back, those things will slaughter every last one of you.”

None of the townsfolk were listening however. They were all screaming at the soldiers, demanding to be left in peace.

“Take as many of them as will come with us willingly – have them share your saddles. Leave the others.” Jaime commanded with heavy resignation as he watched the scene unfolding before him. Already, he could see the flames dying at the edges of the former campsite, their last bastion of true defence crumbling. 

“Ser, if the dead are so far South, the way North is lost to us. The North itself may be lost.” Calum called as both he and Podrick rode up beside Jaime. The knight from Bear Island looked as if he had aged ten years in the span of half an hour, his entire demeanour haggard.

_Sansa._

“We fall back!” he shouted, ignoring the numbness that was spreading through his heart. Too many lives were depending on him…except the one life he had sworn to protect with his own. 

If he thought too long upon it, the weight would crush him, and all would be lost.

“Ser, I’m sure the Dragon Queen and Jon are defending Winterfell even as we speak.” Podrick said, although the confidence in his voice was lacking.

Neither knight deigned to respond to the squire. Hope was simply too cruel a concept at this juncture, and neither of them could bear falsehoods right then.

***

They rode as fast as they could through the every thickening layer of snow. Those armed with dragonglass rode on the perimeters, together with those who bore fiery torches. They were careful to keep the fires burning, as it was the only light they had in the cold dark, and the surest weapon against the dead. The moon and the stars did not deign to show their faces.

“That young man you brought with you. Evin.” Bronn spoke as they rode at the back of the van. “I don’t see him here with us.” 

“He fled. I watched as he ran.” Jaime said dully. 

“Smart boy.” Bronn nodded. “Those things…I wasn’t there when they were showing it off in the Dragonpit but I heard the bastard from the North speak often enough of them…seeing it with my own eyes however…”

“It’s enough to drive one mad.” 

Shuddering, the sellsword didn’t have a response at first. Finally, with a bitter laugh, he said, “It’s starting to look like I should have gone with your brother.”

The ground was lifting upwards, and the horses were starting to struggle from both the snow and the steep angle. Dawn was still nowhere in sight, and even if it came for them, Jaime had no idea what to expect from a new day. Tugging his cloak tightly around himself, Jaime did his best to forget the sight of red hair and dead eyes. 

Then, he heard it - the ululating voices of the dead approaching at a terrifying rate. 

Casting him a look of abject horror, Bronn was the first to shout, “Move!”

The horses were already showing signs of strain and panic as it were. Froth was building at their mouths, and their eyes had rolled back to show their whites. A few of them reared, casting their riders off before racing blindly into the night.

As one, the group struggled up the slope, but as the first wights began to overtake them, their progress practically ground to a halt. Raising his spear, Jaime began to stab wildly into the crumbling masses that came within reach, moving on to the next, and the next, and the next…there seemed as if there would be no end to the stream of enemies.

When his horse eventually collapsed under him, Jaime found himself on the ground, ducking blows and rusted blades, scrabbling madly for his fallen spear. 

Steel and obsidian clashed loudly against each other, as burning corpses lit up the night. With a start of horror, the Lord Commander of Winterfell found himself staring into a familiar face. It was Evin, though his face was slackened by death, and his blood was frozen in a black stain at his chest. The corpse of his companion approached with his head tilted at an unnatural angle, mindless but grasping, ever grasping for him.

Face hardening in grim determination, Jaime stabbed at his foe…and missed, falling towards the walking dead…

Only to find Evin’s body crumbling before him, courtesy of someone else’s weapon.

Slowly, the embattled group inched uphill, although it was doubtful that any of them were aware of where they were going, eager as they were to simply get away from the screeching undead. Men screamed and fell dying all around, as flaming torches sank uselessly into the snow.

Without any warning, a strange mist coalesced all around the living.

The wights stopped moving as one, their mouths opening in sharp, startlingly human screams. As one, they crumbled to the ground in a fine dust.

“What…” he asked in shock, weapon still poised to stab at a foe that was no longer there.

“Questions later. Move _now_.” Bronn grabbed his left arm and steered him upwards. 

***

When he had a moment to catch his breath at the top of the hill, Jaime looked at the opaque mists that surrounded the plateau they stood on, and knew for certain where he stood.

It was a good thing he had paid attention when Sansa told him the occasional tale from her childhood. Tales of holy places where the Children of the Forest were buried.

“Their ghosts will linger into eternity where their bodies were cut down at Heart’s Hill. No doubt they mean to stand guard against the enemy forever.” she said one night as they lounged against each other on a pile of luxurious furs before her wide hearth. 

He replied without thinking, “You know there aren’t any such things as ghosts don’t you?”

The look of sorrow that crossed her face made him instantly regretful of his loose tongue. Doubtless, some childish part of her had wondered if she would ever see the shades of those whom she had loved and lost some unexpected day. 

The moment was quickly forgotten when he had kissed her in an effort to distract her, before they set about the serious business of removing every article of clothing from each other’s bodies.

Thinking about Sansa hurt. Thinking about making love, holding her close was almost enough to bring him to his knees. 

One side of Jaime’s face was bloody from a gash inflicted somewhere on his scalp. He knew that were he to remove his armour and his tunic, the entirety of his right side would be covered in purpling bruises. 

“How many have we lost?” he asked Podrick, who stood to his right, staring blankly into nothing.

“About half our men.” the squire replied softly. “I saw them take Vylarr…and I watched as they took Alissa.”

“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.” Jaime breathed. 

“Don’t be.” Podrick shuddered, blinking his tears away. With numb realization, Jaime saw that the squire no longer looked a boy in the very least. “I just…I hope I don’t see her face again.”

 _Gods…Evin._ Jaime mentally shied away from the horror of that memory. 

“We can’t stay here.” Bronn said as he approached. “Swirling mists that eat those things are bloody fantastic, but the firewood is about to run out, and there isn’t enough in the way of supplies to keep us going long.…”

“We wait for dawn.” Jaime ordered.

The sellsword looked ready to argue, but something in the Lord Commander’s expression stayed his tongue. 

Throughout what was left of the night, the men stayed huddled close together in desperate attempts to stay as warm as they could. Their weapons lay ready, though their hands were shaking from both fright and freeze. 

Twice, Jaime had nodded off, and twice, had started awake from nightmares where red hair turned to ash in his hands, and warm lips crumbled under his own like grave dirt. The gibbering screams of the wights dwindled away slowly, as did the mist. 

When he awoke the third time, he was relieved to see a clear sky above him, the rays of a weak winter sun streaming down; all who were left sat unmolested atop Heart’s Hill. 

In the distance, Harroway sat, still as a tomb.

“Lads, it’s time.” Jaime stood up. Reluctantly, the men followed. Securing what was left of their horses and supplies, the much diminished group began the slow climb back down to the ground.

***

Days bled into one another. Time became immeasurable. It could have been weeks, or it could have been months. Either was possible.

Were he to look in a glass, Jaime thought, he would not recognize the man staring back. His cheekbones felt like blades against his fingertips, and his armour chafed against his ribs. A scar ran up the length of his neck, an angry red line that matched the increasingly tattered cloak he wore. 

Sometimes, he’d try to imagine what Sansa would say of his beard when she saw him.

“My wild man,” she would murmur, running her soft hands across his face, before taking his lips in a kiss. 

The fantasy was more bitter than sweet. He had to remind himself that it was unlikely Sansa would ever say anything to him again.

Supplies the men had taken from King’s Landing had long since dried up, and the villages and towns they passed were all abandoned and plundered. Even at risk of starvation however, Jaime was never eager for either himself or the men to range for small prey. Often, soldiers who volunteered themselves for short hunting expeditions did not return with their companions…though when they did turn up later, they were always cold, blue-eyed and murderous. And they were never alone.

The group learned to take what rest they could when the sun was out; when the sun was gone, they fled as fast as they could manage. They did not linger in any place too long, knowing that to tarry was to increase their odds of being trapped. Too many close shaves, too many men lost along the way to converging wights had taught them all hard lessons. Without food, fortifications, or even shelter, standing and fighting was a distant notion that Jaime was forced to discard time and again, much as he loathed fleeing for his life at every turn.

Wandering with no particular goal, the ambitions of the ever shrinking van was reduced to one thing and one thing only: to survive.

One sundown, Calum raced back to camp without Podrick. The knight was empty-handed, and had shaken his head in grim despair as he slumped to the ground in exhaustion. 

That night, Jaime sat outside the protective circle of their group, a dagger in his left hand, and a piece of burning firewood in the ground to his right. Bronn and the others circled behind him warily. 

Bronn had told him in urgent hisses that they should have moved on, should have found a more defensible position while there was still daylight, but there was no moving Jaime. 

Sure enough, when the moon passed behind a cloud, when the snows began to fall again, a slight figure ambled into view.

“Pod.” Jaime called. 

The creature turned its gaze upon him, no sign of recognition in its blue, blue eyes. 

“You did not deserve this,” Jaime continued with a rusty smile upon his face as he slowly stood. “You were shit at starting a fire, and when you did manage to start them, you burned everything in sight. Your footwork was terrible, but I thought one day you might have had promise with a shortsword.”

The thing that had been Podrick approached him, a reedy cry emanating from its chest.

“I told Brienne I would take care of you. The wench will have my head for this.” Jaime laughed, and heard the madness in his laugh. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He lifted the dragonglass dagger in his hand, and brought it down in one smooth stroke. 

“He was a good lad.” Bronn said from behind, his expression betraying nothing. 

“Yes.” Jaime said as he looked down at the lifeless husk at his feet. Unearthly screeches were closing in on them from the direction Podrick’s corpse had lurched from. “Yes he certainly was. Come - it’s past time for us to leave this place.”

***

Their horses had long since died to feed them. 

On foot, the remaining men - all thirteen of them - made their way slowly across the land. 

It was when Jaime saw the spires on the horizon that he knew where he was and how far they had come since Harroway.

The crazed laughter that would have bubbled to his lips was interrupted by an explosion of green light which filled the sky above them. The sound that accompanied it was great and terrible, and every last one of the men fell to the ground screaming as they clutched at their ears. Above them, gulls and crows alike cawed as they took flight.

At length, Jaime managed to lift his head, and he found himself gazing blearily upon great plumes of smoke that was lifting from the great city of King’s Landing. The spires of the Red Keep however, continued to stand; a dreadful understanding began to take root in the former Kingsguard’s mind.

Then, because there was not enough horrors to be had, not enough darkness in all the world, the sky became filled with the jagged edges of a fell red lightning. The very ground heaved and screamed as if the earth itself was being rent apart. 

Bronn clutched at Jaime’s handless arm as the knight himself clawed desperately at the dirty snow beside his face, trying to hold on to something, anything.

Just as suddenly as it began, everything became deathly silent. The men lay where they were, breathing loudly as they faced the clear blue sky. None of them cared that they might be found by the undead things that nipped at their heels constantly. None of it mattered anymore. 

Somewhere close by, a songbird began to sing in tremulous tones.


	5. North Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is death and there is happiness.

_”And under the rubble, of the mountain that tumbled, I’ll hold you forever.” Rural Alberta Advantage, Frank, A.B._

***

When he was six years of age, Jaime visited King’s Landing for the first time. His mother had laughed to see the excitement on the faces of her twins, and had held his hand as he pointed out every last insignificant detail that fascinated him. Which meant just about everything really, from the great doors leading into the city proper, to the fascinating sight of Gold Cloaks wandering through the streets…

Cersei had squealed in delight at the colours all around them, had become enamoured by the ladies of the court in all their finery. He had always suspected it was that formative experience which ultimately fostered her lifelong obsession with all things beautiful. It was that experience which twisted silk and power in her mind, into unbreakable iron knots.

For Jaime, it was the Anniversary Tourney that shaped a large part of his future in more ways that he could ever have anticipated. He had looked upon the jousting knights with worshipful eyes, admiring the grace and the skill with which they had conducted themselves. In his childish heart, he swore that one day, he would be as golden and as noble as the knights on the tourney grounds.

But how were either of the children to know of the ugliness that was occurring right over their heads, of the words spoken and deeds done that would shape the fate of the Seven Kingdoms?

If Aerys had never insulted Joanna Lannister’s teats, would those first seeds of spite have taken root in his father with the ferocity that they ultimately did? Perhaps the city would never have been so brutally sacked; perhaps Jaime would never have become the Kingslayer.

Regardless of paths untrod, the man who entered the city now looked upon it with haunted eyes. All along the road leading up the gates of King’s Landing, a layer of brown dirt sat atop the snow, with half buried weapons and armour occasionally visible through the layers of filth. Jaime had killed enough of those things to find the appearance of the brown, oily filth familiar - it was as if an entire army of wights had crumbled to nothing right as they were breaching the walls of the city.

The resplendent gates themselves were nowhere in sight. Whatever explosion had taken place had blown the heavy oaken doors clean off its hinges. Every single street was filled with fluttering grey ash, and the broken corpses of its denizens: here an arm, there a head. On one street corner, they found a girl perfectly preserved on one side of her body, but burned beyond recognition on the other…

From where Jaime stood, he could see that parts of Flea Bottom was still alight in hungry green flames, endlessly consuming what it had not yet scorched.

Three times, Calum had to stop. Three times, Calum retched the meagre contents of his stomach into a blackened gutter. Despite everything he had seen and lost, the sight of the dead that littered the streets of the city was somehow still worse, in the eyes of the knight of Bear Island. 

Not that Jaime could blame him. Calum might not have guessed it yet, but every body on the ground had been laid low not by some fey creature, but had been laid waste at the hand of one who still lived and breathed. Staring at the standing spires of the Red Keep, he didn’t need to ask, to know who had done this.

“Do you think these bodies will rise again?” one of the surviving Lannister soldiers asked in dull tones, as if he didn’t truly care for the answer either way.

In the three days since they had witnessed the twin events on the plains outside of the city, all pursuit seemed to have abruptly died away. Nothing jumped out at them from the shadows; no long dead companions dogged their steps. There were no strange hisses in the night, warning them of wights ready bring them all into endless servitude. 

The sky remained clear for the first time in a long time, and the cold seemed much more bearable than it had been only days ago.

“No.” Jaime said, surprising himself. 

Keeping his eyes peeled on the castle ahead, the knight began his last climb to the Red Keep.

***

The castle was completely intact, to everyone’s surprise except Jaime’s. However, there no was sign of life, apart from the few scurrying vermin. The kitchens - the first thing Jaime had led them to - were deserted but not, thankfully, empty. Small cases of dried fruit and cured meats greeted the weary and hungry men, and unopened casks of ale quenched their thirsts.

“Careful,” Jaime warned even though he wanted to devour all the food he could lay his eyes on. “You must be careful. I’ve seen starving men die for the sole reason of taking in more than they should.”

Two of the younger soldiers ignored him. 

He had not the energy left to protect them from themselves. “Calum, Bronn, see to the stables when you’re done. Mayhap, we’ll find something that will carry us North.”

The older man’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you think Winterfell stands? How many wights stand between us and home do you think?”

Jaime said nothing. Once he was finished with King’s Landing, he would rather be on the road towards Winterfell, as was his original intent to begin with, before he had gotten so lost. All the men he had tried to protect, almost all of them had been killed along the way - there was no true reason for him to find safer havens anymore, if any even existed.

“You’re the only game in town now,” Bronn cracked a rusty smile as he chewed slowly, a shadow of the sharp man he had once been. “No harm in riding further with you I s’pose.”

One of the young men who had refused Jaime’s advice fell to the ground, clutching at his stomach.

“Please…please help,” he gasped, his face twisting into a rictus of agony as Bronn dropped to his knees and cradled his fallen companion’s head.

“You should have listened to Ser Jaime,” a familiar voice said from behind them. Jaime turned to see a much shrunken Qyburn approaching slowly. “Your stomach is even now rupturing. Starving men cannot handle as much as you have already swallowed.”

“Don’t let me die this way.” the man begged, clutching at the sellsword’s filthy tunic. Bronn nodded curtly, and drew his weapon.

As the soldier rattled his last, gurgling on his own blood, Jaime, who had yet to remove his gaze from the former maester, asked, “Did you have a hand in the burning of the city?”

“On the Queen’s orders Ser. It was the last of our wild fire caches, and it was the surest way to deter the approaching wights while ensuring the entire city would not turn on us.” the man straightened up and looked challengingly at the knight. 

“We were besieged here for months. We lost almost all the remaining men when we sent them to answer the threat outside the city. The Golden Company we hired - once they saw what we faced, they sailed away with the last of the Ironborn. All except for that madman Euron of course… _he_ chose to linger, no doubt coveting the Iron Throne…”

Jaime smiled a strange half smile. “What would you and my sister have done when the fire died out…and when the rest of the dead arrived, crawling over the ashes of all the people you murdered, just to get to you?”

Qyburn looked at him at a loss for words. 

“Did Cersei honour her promises to my brother and the Targaryen Queen,” he asked curiously.

“The Queen’s priority was always her own people, not the causes of the North, or of a foreign invader.” the old man declared stiffly, utterly unaware of how ridiculous that claim sounded in the middle of a dead city.

Jaime looked away at last. “You saved my life once, and I’m not one to forget something like that. In return…in return you will leave my presence now, and you will never let me see your face again.”

“But my lord, where would I go?” the old man asked plaintively. “The dead, as you say, still walk outside this city.”

It was Calum who drew his sword and stepped forth, snarling like an animal. “Get out you filthy murderer. Or I will make you pay for all the lives lost in the streets below…and I will _enjoy_ doing it.”

The old man started, before he turned and ran out the kitchen, and out of the keep. 

_Doubtless, he will survive,_ , Jaime thought. _Vermin always did._

“See to the stables.” Jaime ordered again as Bronn wiped his dagger on his breeches. “I have business to attend to.”

***

He knew the way to her chambers. How could he not, when it was the same chambers he had stood guard over so many nights, listening as Aerys drew the screams out of Rhaella? The chambers within which Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella had all been conceived.

The rotting carcass of Euron Greyjoy was sprawled in the hallway, his neck ripped almost to the bone. His eyes were open and unblinking, as flies crawled all over his body. Across from the Ironborn scum, the Mountain was sprawled with his back to the wall. A broken blade had been stabbed into his throat, where neither his breastplate nor his helm could have protected him.

Stepping over the putrefying corpses, Jaime pushed open the ornate doors before him and entered.

Cersei sat before her glass, brushing through what sparse hair she had left. The pink of her scalp could be seen under thin golden strands. The silk dress she wore was stained, and weeping sores dotted her fair hands. 

In their reflection, gaunt though they had both become, he could still see all the similarities they shared. The brilliant emerald eyes, their high cheekbones…

“You’ve come back. Oh Jaime you’re returned for me!” she dropped the hairbrush with a loud clatter and turned in her seat to face him.

“Yes, of course I did.” he said woodenly. “Where else would I be?”

“Father says I’m to marry Robert. He tells me I am to be his Queen,” tears welled in her eyes.

Jaime faltered as understanding sank in. The traces of madness he had seen in her eyes once before, had broken her mind at last. Perhaps he too had gone mad, he thought, as he repeated the lines he had uttered to her all those years ago.

“We’ll run away together across the sea, and live as man and wife…” 

There was a time when he had nurtured that fantasy. He had thought to run away with Cersei to a place where nobody knew nor suspected that they were brother and sister. Perhaps they would have been happy…perhaps they would have had sons and daughters who would have lived to the fullness of their lives.

“Yes…yes Jaime, I’ve only ever wanted you.” she stood and moved closer to him, feverish delight in her gaze. His vision flickered, and for a moment, he saw her as she once was, beautiful and young, her hair a glorious mist of gold.

Cersei moved to kiss him, and the foul smell that assaulted his senses brought him back to the present. Blinking, her ravaged face came back into focus.

“Sweet sister…” he reached both hands up to cup at her jaw. Fingers, both real and false, wrapped around her slender neck. “The time for lies is over.”

Leveraging all the strength that was left in his body, Jaime twisted Cersei’s head to the right until he heard a sharp and unmistakable crack. As her body fell to the ground, he could see the shock etched into her fine, dead features. 

Turning to leave, Jaime found to his surprise that his legs refused to bear his weight. Falling forwards into a pool of blackness, the knight knew no more. 

***

Someone was slapping at his face. Hard. 

“There he is.” Bronn smirked as his eyes fluttered open. “He’s back with us.”

“Seven hells Jaime, we thought you had left us as well.” Calum breathed in relief. “We found horses as you thought we might. They’re a little on the lean side, but if we don’t push them too hard, we might find our way home yet.”

“Home.” Jaime nodded, allowing the two men to hoist him up. The strength was returning slowly to his body as he came awake.

“The others are heading West, They’re off to look to their own kin. They’re tired of running, poor lads.” Calum continued. “It’s just us.”

“Nothing for it but to move forwards.” Jaime stated firmly. 

As the three of them departed, none of them looked back once at the poor, dead thing on the ground. It was just another body in a city filled with corpses, and they had become so very inured to the sight.

***

Jaime dared not hope that his mostly unspoken instincts were right, but the land indeed, no longer seemed haunted by murderous blue eyed creatures.

The roads were in poor condition, and the snows continued to fall, albeit without the same intensity as they had been used to in the past months. In the little townships that dotted the land, life was slowly but surely resuming, though it was clear that the numbers of the smallfolk had been greatly diminished.

No matter - they had all faced hardship before, and they would all face it again, smallfolk or no.

Still, as they traversed further North, they passed more and more deserted crofts and abandoned homes. There was no promise to be found, wherever he looked, that life would ever return to the way it used to be. That is, until the day he heard a might flap of wings, and looked up into the sky.

It was a dragon lazily drifting South. Atop the creature, a lone woman with pale hair rode, ignoring the travellers on the ground. She smiled the smile of a hungry beast.

“Perhaps you’re right and its over.” Bronn broke into a grin. “She doesn’t look like she’s in any sort of a hurry.”

Soon after, a few hundred men who could only have been Dothraki screamers cantered past slowly on malnourished beasts, in the wake of the Dragon Queen. Their weary eyes graced the trio with nary a glance. 

“Aye.” Jaime couldn’t help the burgeoning hope that flared to life in his chest, ill-advised though it was. “It would appear the fighting has ended up North.” 

Calum smiled a smile that bore no shadows in it.

***

Winterfell stood.

Not only did it stand, but its gates were open, and people were coming and going from within and without. Cheerful spires of white smoke streamed upwards from its chimneys, further promising that life went on behind its walls.

Without waiting for the other two, Jaime dug his heels into his mount and sped his way up to the gates, where, unchallenged, he rode into the castle courtyards.

The place was not undamaged, he could see. Parts of the walls had been destroyed, and the Great Hall had caved in on one side. The kennels had been burned to a smoking wreck. Not that he cared about any of it…

Climbing off his horse, he searched desperately for one thing, and one thing only. When finally he found it, everything else faded away, becoming nothing more than background noise and colours.

Sansa stood with Arya, as the Stark daughters looked up at the broken walls and conferred with Darron, the stone mason of Winterfell. She looked far thinner than she had been when he had left her, so very long ago - he was going to fix that the moment he had a chance. A puckered scar ran down the length of her left jaw, though the rest of her appeared unharmed.

_She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life,_ Jaime thought fervently. 

There was a long, thin dagger of dragonglass in her belt, and he almost laughed to see it. He would tease her about it later, he knew, and tell her she was the only Warrior Queen he’d ever need. 

It was Arya who noticed him first. Dark eyes widening in recognition, she laid a hand on her older sister’s forearm. Confused, Sansa looked over in his direction and froze. 

Very slowly, he began to walk towards the woman, suddenly conscious of how he appeared, with his wild beard and tattered clothing. He was about to say something in greeting, when the Queen picked up her skirts and ran towards him, flinging her body into his thin arms and throwing her arms around his neck.

“Jaime,” she breathed against him as she clung desperately to him. 

“I’m an utter mess…” he started, trying to warn her of the dried mud and blood still staining his person, even though he was loathe to let her go. It felt too much like a dream just then, just another delirious, cruel dream…but if it were truly a dream, if he let her go, she would only fade away. 

“I really don’t care,” she shook her head and pulled away just far enough to look up at him. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she wept freely and without shame. “I thought you were dead. I thought I would never see you again.”

“Sansa…” his whispered, tracing his fingers against her perfect face. 

“You’re home.” she smiled through her tears. “Gods be good Jaime, you’re home.”

As she pressed her lips against his, as his arms wrapped around her smaller frame, holding her close, his heart soared higher than it ever had before. For the first time, he felt unfettered by all the trappings that had once held him prisoner. 

_Yes_ , he thought with joy, sinking back into a reality he could scarce believe he was finding himself in. _I am home indeed._

***

The Queen and her Lord Protector were to be wed under the Heart Tree, in a Godswood that still stood half burned by dragon fire. The pools still steamed however, and the snows had fallen thickly enough, it was easy to ignore the damage laying underneath the icy white layers.

Jon - who wasn’t Jon Snow, as it turned out, but yet another Targaryen - was expected to give Sansa away. It was to be his last duty to the North, one he had insisted upon, before he turned his gaze towards to the South, where his own Queen awaited him. 

It was by Aegon’s hand that the war against the dead had been ended. The red lightning in the sky Jaime and his men had witnessed…that had been the result of the Night King’s final malicious spell against the living, abruptly ended when Rhaegar Targaryen’s true-born son had ripped the creature’s heart out of its chest.

 _Would it have made a difference to all the poor souls in King’s Landing, if Cersei had stayed her hand even a minute more?_ Jaime wondered, given the proximity of events as they had transpired. But he knew the bitter answer to that question, and so did Tyrion, who had gazed at him in morose understanding when he had been told him of the fate of their sister.

“I meant what I said before Lannister, you hurt her and I’ll end you. I can do that you know, I’m a King. So Daenerys tells me anyway.” Aegon threatened a little drunkenly the night before Jaime was to be married. 

That the rule of an uncertain kingdom had passed itself into the hands of an incestuous union…the notion still boggled the mind, but then again, the Targaryens always did things as they saw fit, to hell with what anyone else thought.

“Threatening a one handed man - not quite Kingly is it?” Jaime snorted, ignoring his misgivings in favour of getting more inebriated. Tyrion, who was sprawled close by, sipped carefully at his wine even as Sandor Clegane gulped the tawny liquid straight from a cask as if there were no tomorrow. 

The four of them had managed to break into the pantry, and had broken into the stores reserved for the wedding feast. If the Queen in the North somehow became aware of this infraction, all their lives were doubtless, forfeit, Targaryen King in the mix or no.

Jaime’s relief at seeing Tyrion safe and mostly-sound had assisted greatly in mending the rift between the two; his brother now sported a new scar, in the form of a missing nose. There were still chasms to be bridged however, if ever they could be. To his credit, Tyrion had not pushed the issue, and had patiently been doing everything he could to accommodate his older brother. 

The Hound, however, was another matter. Jaime had yet to forget that Clegane had seen fit to rest in Sansa’s bed in the Red Keep, and had in fact, once deigned to kiss his betrothed. Granted, it had taken place in another lifetime, but the disgraced knight’s continued and unabashed regard of the Queen in the North rankled his senses.

To say nothing of Sansa’s own fondness of the scarred man, for reasons he could never fathom. 

“The Little Bird just can’t stop herself when it comes to Lannisters, can she?” Sandor asked, perhaps more than a little unwisely. “Something about you golden haired cunts she finds irresistible.” 

Clumsily, Jaime began to feel for the pommel of Oathkeeper with his left hand. To his other side, Jon’s gaze had chilled beyond measure, as Ghost began to growl low in its throat. It was Tyrion’s voice that broke through the red haze settling over the pantry. 

“Let him be Jaime. Sansa will marry you on the morrow, before Gods and men alike.” his brother murmured, pointedly seeking his gaze. “No point sticking your sword in Sandor’s bowels now…no matter what the lonely brute has to say.”

“Listen to the imp.” Sandor ignored the burning look Jaime cast him. “I’d rather see her happy for once…even if it’s with you, Kingslayer.”

The Targaryen King began to reach for Longclaw, ready to defend his almost-sister’s intended.

“Do you suppose you’d mind if I asked for Arya’s hand in marriage?” Tyrion asked Aegon, changing the subject. “I feel it would really bring our families closer if the Lannister boys all found themselves a good Stark girl.”

Aegon gave Tyrion a look Jaime used to think was only reserved for him. Then, he burst out in derisive laughter, the grip on his sword loosening. “You’re welcome to try. I'll have the maester ready for you.”

The tension broken, Jaime hid a smirk by taking a pull of his ale, while Tyrion smiled into his own flagon. The Hound guffawed raucously. At the edges of the small room, Ghost prowled silently, his ears twitching at the sound of merriment.

***

The rest of the night had passed in a blur, and Jaime had woken up to the prodding of a squire he had somehow acquired. The young boy had seen to it that he was properly shaven, bathed, and dressed in a matter of minutes, and had all but shoved him towards the Godswood, with Oathkeeper strapped firmly to his hip. 

The Lord Protector waited, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other. He had been instructed, on pain on death from the Queen himself, not to seek her out the day before the wedding, instructions which he had scoffed at but obeyed reluctantly. 

“It’s stupid.” he had tried to convince her as he nibbled at an earlobe. “Everyone knows whose bed I spend my nights in…there’s no one between here and Essos, who doesn’t know who you belong to.”

“Hush!” she smacked playfully at him. “I don’t like it either, but its bad luck, and between you and I, we’ve had enough of that.”

He was starting to drift off into vivid memories of what exactly he had done to Sansa after he had lost the argument, when his bride walked into view. Her hair cascaded down her back in scarlet waves, with simple braids pulling auburn strands away from her face. The dress she wore must have been splendid, but he noticed none of it, in favour of admiring his bride’s shining smile. 

Under the tree, they recited their vows to each other, and when it came time to kiss in front of their few other attendees, Jaime did so with all the enthusiasm of a man in love. 

The feast itself was perhaps the least grandiose wedding feast he had ever experienced, but it didn’t matter. Never had he tasted sweeter wine, or dined on finer food. There was a moment of sorrow, as he gazed at the faces of the court before him, knowing that there was at least one person who should have been there, but who never would be again. 

Brienne, he had been told, had acquitted herself admirably on the field, but had died from a festering wound. It had not been a good death, but she would be remembered by all whom she had protected and saved. The knowledge of her passing had soured his initial joy upon returning to Winterfell in many ways, more than he had thought would be possible.

Glancing at Sansa, Jaime could see that she too searched for the faces of the dead among the guests.

But then Calum had climbed up onto a table close by, before launching into a bawdier version of the Bear and the Maiden Fair than ever Jaime had heard. The assembled crowd had laughed and sang along, and even dour Aegon had joined in the chorus eventually. 

The conflict had been too long, and the celebration was more than necessary for everyone in attendance, regardless of which house each individual allied themselves with. 

Under their table, Sansa’s hand found his own, and he held on to it tightly before kissing her in full view of the whole world. It was almost enough for him not to notice as Arya slunk off into the shadows, a black look upon her young face.

Later that night, as they undressed each other slowly before the fire, Sansa was the first to say, “My Lord Husband…”

“Husband would do….Wife.” he drawled, tugging her into his embrace as he savoured every syllable. There had been a hint of a suggestion of a bedding ceremony as the feast had tailed off, but he had put his foot down hard enough that most everyone had shied away from the looming wrath of the Lord Protector of Winterfell. 

There would no one laying a hand on his wife that night, or ever again, that wasn’t him.

Together, they giggled tipsily, and fell into their marital bed, her lips warm against his skin. 

“I love you.” he whispered when he spent his seed inside of her. Perhaps a son would finally come of their union, or a beautiful auburn daughter with green eyes.

“And I love you,” the Queen responded, stroking his hair as he rested his brow against her bosom. “You will never, ever leave me again, do you hear?” 

“Aye…as my Queen commands.” he agreed sleepily, his living hand gripping at her hip possessively.

 _It had been a good day_ , he thought as he began to drift off to slumber, his arm wrapped around his wife’s waist. 

There would be more good days to come, he knew, but just then, laying in Sansa’s arms was all he needed, and all Jaime felt he would ever need.

For the first time in his life, Jaime could finally call himself happy, and it was worth more than all the gold in the seven kingdoms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is an epilogue. However, if you want the ending to stop right here, where everyone is happy, and everyone is ok that is still left...


	6. Kiss Each Other Clean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stranger always receives his due.
> 
> Also, I totally stretch the Faceless Men lore to the nth degree.
> 
> Some plagiarism from Joss Whedon's "Angel".

_”You'll ask me to pray for rain with ash in your mouth, you’ll ask it to burn again” Iron and Wine, Cinder and Smoke_

***

**Epilogue**

The air was sweet with the smell of apple blossoms. Overhead, the sun shone brightly in a blue, cloudless sky, while breezes eased the heat of summer.

Jaime sat under the Heart Tree, a few feet away from Bran.

“You and I, we’ve never truly talked.” Bran started, apropos of nothing.

“Aye. Pity, that.” the Lord Protector of Winterfell replied absently.

“You have questions.” Bran’s rheumy eyes were fixed upon the ancient carved face upon the weirwood. “You’ve always had questions, about what could have been.”

“Perhaps.” Jaime slowly returned his thoughts to the present.

“Sometimes, I see doorways into lives that were never lived…destinations never reached.” Bran paused. After a few moments, he continued. “In most of them, you would never have saved your daughter. Myrcella would have died in your arms in the cabin of a ship bearing the both of you from Dorne…though she would have called you ‘Father’ at the very end, with gladness in her heart.”

Jaime’s attention was caught.

“In those lives, you would always have lost Tommen, while you were off slaying our Uncle Brynden…as for your sister. It would still have been your hand that killed her, though perhaps not your will.” the old man in the wheeled chair looked thoughtful.

“My sister. Sansa. In some of the windows I’ve looked into, Petyr Baelish would have taken her and used her, before discarding her in one of his whorehouses when he finally realized that she was not, and would never be my mother. He would have sat upon the Iron Throne for a season, but would have lost it when the Long Night came upon him.”

“What is this madness you speak of?” Jaime climbed to his feet, ignoring the creak in his old bones. “Baelish has been dead these thirty years - I slew him myself.”

“Sometimes, windows open to me, showing me what one man’s choice could have changed.” Bran said with a strange smile that unnerved the man. “In some of them, it is not my sister you loved. In some of them, it is the wench you pledged yourself to. Or my cousin Aegon…you two would have made each other quite miserable, but your love would have been true.”

Jaime stared at the figure before him, unexpectedly imagining a life shared with Aegon Targaryen. It was an odd picture, but strangely, he could see them existing together with about a hundred direwolf pups.

“But what you must understand at the end of all things is - no matter what roads were taken…” Bran met his gaze. “Jaime Lannister, the Stranger always receives his due.”

“Father, it is time.” Robb called from the entrance of the Godswood. His son’s emerald eyes were filled with sorrow, Jaime could plainly see.

“Yes. Yes of course.” Jaime called. He turned back to Bran, but the younger man had fallen silent, his eyes staring blankly ahead once more.

Slowly, Jaime began the long walk towards his children.

It was a beautiful day, he thought bitterly. It was simply too beautiful day to put his wife in the ground, and yet, here he was.

***

Robb kept his arm around his father, as if worried that the older man would fall without assistance. A large part of Jaime chafed at that. He was capable of standing, he knew it. Perhaps not capable of lifting a sword, or moving quickly, but standing? That was still within his reach.

But then his son trembled against him, and he knew that Robb held unto him because he needed his father, King in the North or not. Jaime placed his shaking hand upon Robb’s red curls, soothing his son the way he had done countless times before when the King had been naught but a boy. Behind father and son, his good-daughter, the Targaryen princess, stood with her pale head bowed, her delicate hands holding young Eddard.

Joanna, his daughter, wept openly, cradling her pregnant belly even as she theatrically turned her golden head into her Lord Husband’s chest. He was a weak man, her husband. He had never really taken to the pasty Reed boy who could scarce lift a sword.

Looking at his daughter now, at the finely tailored gown of samite and lace she had chosen to wear on a day such as this, Jaime could not help but see traces of a twin he did his best not to remember.

Almost everyone was present: the Dragon Queen and her Aegon, his youngest child Rickon, who had been off avenging some new slight meted by Eastern raiders…

The battles Rickon had been fighting was only the beginnings, he knew, of a larger conflict, whether or not anyone else saw it for what it was just yet. There was a new King to the East, who longed for more to fall under his rule. There were always new and hungry Kings and Queens, however. The damned wheel never ceased turning.

Arya stood off to the side, staring morosely at the stone that had been carved to the likeness of her sister. By means Jaime never questioned, Arya had not aged since the day she had returned to Winterfell. Not truly.

Emerald eyes, still sharp despite his age, searched for Tyrion almost instinctively, until Jaime remembered that his brother too, had gone where he could not follow. Not yet.

Tyrion, Brienne, Joffrey, Myrcella, Tommen…and now Sansa. They were all gone, but he was still here, a final unfairness he could not deny. He had twenty years on Sansa, and yet it was she who was first in the grave, because of some illness the maesters had yet to find a cure for.

“She was a good Queen.” Daenarys started. “I always respected her guidance and leadership.”

Jaime had to actively keep from scoffing. He still remembered the day when they had negotiated for the North to remain a sovereign state, independent of Targaryen interference. Sansa had stated coldly, “We could be your friends, or we could be your enemies. Unless you wish to see more bloodshed and death in both our lands, I don’t see an in-between.”

That had been a gamble to be sure. Daenerys still had one dragon left at the end of it, and one dragon was all it took to lay waste all they had worked so hard to protect.

In the end, it was Aegon who told his furious wife firmly, though not without trepidation, that if the Targaryen Queen loosed Drogon on the North, his first home and where his heart always turned, he would repay her in fire and blood.

Jaime would never tell Aegon this, but Sansa had confessed much later that same night, that she had counted upon her not-quite-brother to react the way he did, to win her what she wanted.

“And if he hadn’t? If he had sided with his _wife_?” Jaime had asked with not a little annoyance at what he thought was a reckless gambit on his own wife’s part.

His ire at the time, had been partially owed to having put an infant Joanna to bed for the third instance in two hours. Of course he could have gotten the nurse to see to his spoiled little girl, but for all his annoyance, he would not have traded moments with his darling girl for all the world.

“If he had sided with Daenerys, then I suppose we’d have been in a world of trouble.” she replied with a smirk. Watching his wife nursing a fussing young Rickon at her breast, he knew his anger would be short-lived.

Free they remained, and the Dragon Queen had proven to be a good ally in the end. She never forgave him for the death of her father - never - but she had adored her almost-niece and nephews. Her own upbringing no doubt, played a role in how much she spoiled and loved his children, an extended family she would never have had otherwise. When she had approved the match between her only daughter and his eldest son, he had heaved a sigh of relief, knowing finally that the North was truly safe from her terrifying wrath.

“Father, did you have anything you wanted to say?” Rickon asked, his blue eyes shining in the light of the candles before his mother’s tomb. The boy was a mirror of him from forty years prior, but for his Tully eyes. In his son’s face, Jaime could see the same arrogance, the same proud tilt in his chin…the same desire in his eyes as he gazed upon Joanna, who stole yearning glances of her own at her brother when she thought her fool husband wasn’t looking.

 _Was the affliction in the very blood of the Lannisters,_ he had wondered often with growing dismay, as he watched brother and sister grow into maturity. It was no wonder Sansa had insisted that Joanna was to be married off as soon as it became decent to do so. As it was, perhaps it had always been too late, judging from the possessive air Rickon acquired each and every time his gaze slipped to his sister’s swollen belly.

“No, I have nothing to say.” he looked away from his children, suddenly ill at ease. It was not the same stage, and the players were different…but the story itself…

“All I needed to say, I’ve said to your mother. And it was for her ears alone that I said them.”

His three children said nothing in return. They had not anticipated any sentimental monologues from him - not in their presence, anyway.

How many nights had he spent holding their Lady Mother’s hand as she writhed in pain, dying from something he could not have saved her from? How many times did he whisper that he would it were him that lay suffering?

“And have _me_ watch as _you_ lay tormented?” she had answered with a sad smile each time. “Are you so cruel Ser Jaime?”

 _Still her knight then, even now_ , Jaime marveled. Even on the cusp of the stranger's doorstep, despite the fact that she had lived and ruled for decades, the Lord Protector of Winterfell was still able to find traces of the girl Sansa had once been as he looked into her clouded blue eyes. 

“Perhaps I am at that. But I can’t see how I will be able to go on, the day you finally leave me.” he confessed, veined hand clasping tight against her frail one.

“But you must. The North needs you…your children will always have need you,” she murmured more than once. “Swear to me one last time, you will go on…for my sake, if not yours.”

Too addled by agony in those last months, she had not noticed that he never gave his word on the matter.

One by one, everyone left Jaime in the crypt, staring at the badly carved likeness of his wife. When finally, the place fell silent, he said very softly, “You’ve done me a bad turn Sansa. You’ve left me alone in this senseless world.”

He received no answer, though he obviously expected none. As he turned to leave, he realized he had not actually been left alone in the crypt.

“I told you once, that I would not act as long as my sister had need of you.” Arya studied him with ageless dark eyes.

Jaime almost smiled. “Is it time then?”

She said nothing.

“If it is…then get on with it.” he sighed.

“For all you’ve done for her however, and for my family since…I suppose you deserve a measure of mercy…”

There was a shimmer in the air about the woman. Her hands made a complicated gesture as they drifted before her face, and then suddenly, he was no longer looking at Arya…not at all.

“Jaime,” the girl breathed as tears began slowly to stream down her apple cheeks.

It couldn’t be, he thought. But it was…it was Sansa as he had first loved her, a woman in her prime, learning to rule a kingdom, and learning to trust her unworthy knight. Her face was yet unscarred, her eyes undimmed by pain.

“Is it time for us to lie now?” he asked shakily. Even knowing it was only some cheap glamour, he reached out a trembling hand to touch her face.

“Jaime…my Jaime…” she whispered brokenly, reaching to pull him into a kiss. Knowing it would be the last thing he ever did, Jaime still allowed the woman to press her soft lips to him without a fight. It was foolish, pathetic even. Sansa had been gone only two days, and already, already he missed her so much. The prospect of facing a future without her was too daunting to consider.

“I miss you…” he whispered, as he felt his legs buckle under him. He pushed her red tresses away from her face, no longer sure to whom it was he was speaking.

“I’ve always loved you, even if I didn’t know it…the first time I saw you in the courtyards of Winterfell…in King’s Landing, as I watched you at your ridiculous prayers…Sansa, I love this life we forged - every last second of it, no matter how ugly some truths may be. My life before you was well wasted. Would that I could do it all again, and love you from the start…”

“It won’t be much longer, and then you’ll be where I am.” she cried freely, her tears bitter against his lips. Or perhaps it was something else that tasted so foul. “My love…my golden, noble knight…”

“Good…” Jaime whispered as his eyes slid shut for the last time. “I’m coming…my brave, beautiful girl…”

***

Arya arose from where she had been kneeling beside Jaime Lannister, swiftly administering the antidote to herself as she did so. Justice had finally been served, she thought as she stared down at his body. The war was finally over, and everything was as it should be.

So why did she feel as if her insides were being gutted with a fish knife? Why was she still weeping tears of genuine sorrow that would not cease their flow?

It was true that every face she stole, she learned secrets from its owner. Learned their truest and deepest emotions, all their secret hatreds and petty deeds. But this…

“Take it off.” an unmistakable voice ordered. “Take her face off.”

Arya whipped around, her borrowed blue eyes widening in shock. Aegon - or Jon as he would always be to her - moved swifter than she would ever have thought him capable. With one hand on the pommel of Longclaw, his other hand reached up and slammed her into the wall, his grip painfully tight against her shoulder. There was no sign that strength had left his aging hands in the least.

Behind him, she could see Daenerys taking in the scene with something that seemed strangely akin to horror. The Dragon Queen made her way to the dead body sprawled before Sansa’s likeness, and knelt down beside it.

The woman had never forgiven the Kingslayer - it was no secret. Her distress confused Arya.

“Take it off now.” Jon repeated, traces of Ghost present in his low growl. Dragon he may be, but he had never lost the wolf within. “Seven hells, I always suspected…but to see it…”

She complied hesitantly with a gesture across her face, and was surprised when the tears would not stop flowing even then.

“Why did you do it?” he asked, releasing her. His voice was cracking from the pain he was incapable of fighting.

“Justice.” she said at last, forcing her voice to remain calm. “Justice for Bran. It’s because of him, Bran was crippled. Sansa never told you, for fear of Jaime’s life. Jon, the war is finally over.”

Shocked, Jon backed away from the woman.

“The war…the war has been over for three decades.” he said, aghast.

“I suppose you could call it justice.” Daenerys said she stood up. “You could call anything justice with enough words.”

“You hated him. He killed your father, or don’t you remember?” Arya asked, a challenge in her voice.

“I remember. I also remember my father was a mad, murderous monster…” the Queen tilted her chin up. “I could never have forgiven the Kingslayer, but I’m not fool enough to confuse vengeance with justice.”

“He saved our sister. He saved our sister and he defended the North. Risked his life over and over…” Jon stared at Arya as if he were looking at someone he didn’t recognize. “Do you truly believe _Father_ would have thought of this as _justice_?”

“It was a merciful death.” Arya argued insistently. “He died peacefully in the arms of the woman he loved. I could have gutted him like an animal, but I chose _mercy_.”

The Dragon Queen moved to stand beside her husband. “It seems you have truly come to believe your own lies to the exclusion of all else.”

“I…” she started, and trailed off, suddenly realizing that there was nothing she could say to make Jon look at her like she was his baby sister ever again.

“I want you gone.” Jon said at last, his voice cracking.

“I’m your sister!” Arya protested in what she knew was a futile effort. “You’re my family…”

“You stole Sansa’s face, and murdered her husband before her very tomb.” he interrupted, his voice ragged with rage. “Robb and the other children…they have only just buried their mother, and now they have a father to add to the list of their sorrows. _I_ called Jaime ‘brother’ with gladness in my heart. You however - I no longer know who _you_ are. You are not the sister I left in Winterfell all those years ago…you haven’t been in a very long time.”

“You will not linger - there is no place for you here.” Daenerys commanded with steel in her voice. “Not so close to Eddard - not so close to the grandson I shared with the Kingslayer.”

Arya swallowed. She looked down at Jaime’s face, and wondered if he was laughing, wherever he was.

“Go back to Braavos, to the House of Black and White, or whomever will take you.” Jon said, turning his grief ravaged face away from her. He knelt beside Jaime’s body and cradled the dead man’s limp shoulders. “There is no place for you here…not anymore. If you were anyone else at all, I’d have Robb take your head…but you’re not. The others take me, I cannot do my duty.”

Slowly, as if she were in a dream, the woman turned and walked out of the crypt. As she faced the open gateway leading out of the castle, the irony finally began to sink in. She had finally fulfilled all her promises of justice, slain all who had hurt her family…

But there was no joy to be found in any of it. Only a cold, empty plain where her heart once rested. Her training was at an end, she thought as her tears dried, as she began to leave behind all that had made her Arya Stark.

She was finally No One, and the knowledge was as bitter ashes upon her tongue.

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it - my momentary insanity and accidental AU completed. Thanks to all the peeps who kept reading probably long after I should have ended this story.


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